Chicago woman charged with Riverside arson after argument with husband

April 30, 2013|By Deanese Williams-Harris | Tribune reporter

Linda Lopez, charged with aggravated arson after ab argument with her husband over smoking her marijuana. (Police photo)

A Chicago woman accused of setting fire to a Riverside apartment after an argument with her husband over marijuana has been charged with arson, police said.

Police responded Sunday to an apartment complex on the 2900 block of South Harlem Avenue in the west suburb for a call of an activated fire alarm, according to a news release from the Riverside Police Department.

A tenant, who alerted his neighbors, found a small fire in a planter inside the building. He led the police to the second floor where there was another fire smoldering inside an apartment, the release said. The fire department was called to put the fire out.

An investigation revealed that the former tenant of the unit had moved out two weeks prior and a married couple had moved in because the rent was paid to the end of April. The couple had been using the apartment to party and use heroin, according to the release.

Police learned that the couple went to the North Riverside Mall on Sunday and had stolen liquor. They returned to the apartment where they drank all day and later drove to Chicago to buy crack. They then returned to the apartment where they continued to drink and smoke, the release said.

The woman, later identified as Linda Lopez, 33, of the 2800 block of South Drake Avenue, fell asleep and when she woke up, her marijuana was missing, the release said.

She confronted her husband and accused him of smoking her marijuana. The argument escalated to a fistfight and she threatened to stab her husband, the release said. Instead, she punctured a pink plastic bottle of perfume and poured it on a set of towels before igniting it with a lighter. Lopez told police she started the fire because she was angry her husband smoked the marijuana without her, the release said.

"The tenants inside the building are lucky to be alive," said Riverside Police Chief Thomas Weitzel in the release. "The two elderly tenants that live in the basement, both in their late 80s and early 90s, one is blind and one deaf. There's no possible way these individuals could have made it out of that apartment on their own if the building had become fully engulfed."

There was fire damage to the second-floor apartment door, wall and floor, including the hallway, the release said.

Lopez was charged with aggravated arson and she appeared in court today, where she was ordered held on $20,000 bail, the release said.